Radiation risk from airport scanners

4th July 2011

A consultant has refused to go through the full-body scanner at Manchester Airport because he was concerned that it was potentially dangerous to his health.

Tony Aguirre, a specialist at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary, said he was not prepared to risk being exposed to X-rays and was barred from boarding his flight. He took a flight from Liverpool instead, where scanners are not used. However, British Institute of Radiology and the Royal College of Radiologists found the dose from an airport scan is 100,000 times lower than the average annual dose of radiation from natural background radiation and medical sources.